


I’m not sick.

by redhoneyplease



Category: Bandersnatch - Fandom, Black Mirror
Genre: HAYNES TAKES STEFANS PLACE, I worked really goddamn hard on this I hope it shows, PETER IS NOW HAYNES’S FATHER, THIS IS A ROLE SWAP AU, thank you
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-08 00:00:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17970560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redhoneyplease/pseuds/redhoneyplease
Summary: If she’s not sick, why is she seeing a psychiatrist?(Stefan / Haynes role swap AU)





	I’m not sick.

**Author's Note:**

> Heya y’all! I’ve been so excited to post this fic as I know it’s going to be a big one for me. I love the AU and I have so much content planned for it! I hope y’all enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!

“Dad... I really, don’t want to go-”  
“Patricia, this will be good for you. The psychiatrist, I think his name is Dr. Butler?- he seems quite lovely over the phone.”  
I stab my teeth into my bottom lip, and within a few seconds, as I blink away angry tears; the wound oozes with pain.  
“..I’m not sick...”  
My hands curl into a fist at my side; and graze the matted surface of the car seat.  
“And I don’t want to argue with you.”  
He shoots back; his words intertwined with bitter irritation that seemed to shake salt into the wound, somehow, his tone sent guilt cascading down my spine. I couldn’t work out why,  
I want to speak, but the air silences me shut.  


 

Strangely enough, bathrooms of decently reputed medical practices seem to house a degree of comfort that barriers me between safety and risk; a nice pillow... But it’s one I can’t use for long.  
My own reflection stares back at me through the glass; judgementally. Dust lives and breathes on the material; warping my vision of the woman opposite me. She looks sad, scared; uncomfortable and worst of all, she looks like _me._  
She’s got a smear of last-nights’ _shitty_ mascara underneath her left eye - I want to tell her to wipe it off, but I know she won’t listen.  
There’s an rhythmically challenged knock to the door of the bathroom, and I hear my father lay down instructions that I felt didn’t need to be voiced. ‘Come out, Dr. Butler is ready to see you!’  
In the immediate panic of the moment, my nails scratch against the polished material of the sink and set themselves free, loosening and winding away from this barrier of safety.  
I take another disappointed glance at the woman opposite me, and without mumbling to her that she should fix up her makeup, I rush out. Leaving her behind, glaring at me.  
I wish I could’ve said goodbye.  


 

The corridor is neat; the tiles filtered out of sight by a rug that ran down the entire hall. It was maroon; a nice colour. I think. At least, it was, until I remembered that my father loves maroon too.  
I glance upwards; silently surveying my father and the psychiatrist before me. Dr. Butler? That doesn’t sound right. The name doesn’t flow as it should. I mouth his title with a degree of amusement.  
“Patricia, are you going to stand there and laugh to yourself or be polite?”  
The stifled strictness in his tone that’s only really present for appearances drills into my skull; as my hands tensely crawl inwards, I inhale a choked breath, stiff with discomfort.  
I mumble a quick ‘sorry...’ and cough out a chuckle as I shuffle through appropriate greetings. Time quickening with each passing second; I am running out of time.  
“Patricia... right?”  
Dr. Butler’s face lights up with a strange grin, but the gesture only pricks an ever-growing, turning, disastrous drizzle of confusion- this smile definitely didn’t feel right, as though-  
My father lightly slaps my shoulder in annoyance at my distant behaviour, hoping that the sudden flood of sensory information would flip some switch in my brain to respond. He sends me the best ‘don’t ruin this’ expression he can, before turning back to the psychiatrist; and joining the waiting party for me to speak.  
“ _Right_..”  
I fidget with the sleeves of the jacket I’m wearing; it’s large and it scratches my neck. I don’t even know where it’s from- maybe that girl from last night? I don’t know. I barely remember it.  
“Well.. I assume you’d rather not have your father in these sessions, so, sir, if you’d kindly take a seat in the waiting room?”  
Dr. butler’s voice shakes for a moment; clearly distressed by the dynamic between my father and I. Not the nicest compliment, especially from a psychiatrist.  
The formality of the situation bites at my brain, rooting itself and sprouting leaves of pure anxiety. They snarl with phrases I’ve heard before, and their fuel is the water of my sweat; the stress that may only relieve when this damn plant is dead.  
My father gives him a nod, but not his _friendly, fatherly_ nod, the nod he gives me when I decline going with him for lunch. The nod he gives me when I tell him I forgot to eat breakfast, and apparently, the nod he gives when he’s told to leave.  
“Patricia, just this way..”  


 

“You’re 19.. as it says on here, do you attend uni, ...or anything?”  
His voice stings with judgement, branding itself into my head, forming into a puddle of self-loathing, which, unfortunately for me, self-loathing doesn’t seem to like to evaporate.  
“Well, _no_ , but.. later today—”  
I cut myself off as I swiftly search the walls from my chair, looking for a clock.  
“In an hour or so.. I’m going to demo a game I made... it’s called—”  
I inhale, only to have my words quickly interrupted by the psychiatrist across from me, who leans in with trembling arms to whisper,  
“Bandersnatch.”  
The sudden break of my sentence, drives me to restart, building up a false confidence to try and use as a wall for my words.  
“Oh.. No, It’s called PAC.”  
“-As in PAC man?” He jumps to ask, his shoulders falling inwards and his hands finding a home in his lap.  
“No!” I yelp, as though I’d just been bitten by a hound... like the one from next door.  
I’m already beginning to not like this psychiatrist. I knew there was a dodgy feeling to him–  
“I’m demo-ing it at Tuckersoft... _today,_ that company, with Colin? Colin Ritman? Or as I called him, **the** Colin Ritman.”  
I bite my tongue, as though I’m being force-fed lines to say off a script, and with an anxious grin, I say,  
“You... you said, bandersnatch.. Colin ritman made that?”  
I nervously chuckle a bit at the end of the sentence, as I feel my toes begin to recoil in my shoes.  
Dr. Butler opened his lips to reply; but didn’t say anything in response. I felt as though I was watching national television; strangely hooked, but knowing that what you’re watching is of no real benefit.  
I adjust my posture in the chair; uncomfortable underneath the observational gaze of the psychiatrist opposite me.  
“The game is about these failed video game progammers who begin to doubt the government after falling too deep down the conspiracy hole... it has choices, similar to bandersnatch,”  
I clear my throat, and add,  
“I’m.. I’m not here to talk about video games, I’m here because I’m sick. That’s what _you_ told my father.”  
The psychiatrist brings about his signature smile; it curls his lips in such a way that makes my heart swarm with a strange sense of trenchant guilt, it wraps around me, consuming my thoughts into its hive of rage. It’s not until I start sobbing that the school of shame parts, gathering into a drop of strident fear.  
I don’t know why I’m crying- maybe it’s the familiar yet alien way he smiles? The grin induces anxiety-ridden nausea that eats up my stomach.  
“Patricia.. I never said you were sick?”  
“Only **sick** people see psychiatrists! You out of all people should know that!”  
The tears speed up steadily, in a horrible crescendo that leaves me unable to speak. I breathe. I breathe. I breathe. I breathe. I breathe. I breathe. I breathe. I’m crying.  
My heart angers inside my chest, YELLING with a force that leaves nothing but exhaustion in its wake. I am tired.  
tired.  
He sits in the dawned silence and solemnly darts his eyes to the floor, beginning to pull his earlobe with a violent force that he doesn’t acknowledge the strength of.  
I swallow, and take a moment to glance sideways; fully unsure of what path to take.  
“Patricia...”  
He begins, stealing time to clear his throat,  
“Being sick isn’t necessarily a bad thing..”  
His voice trails off, as he lifts himself off the chair; his uncomfortably familiar grin returning whilst his eyes meet mine.  
I shakily tilt my head as I use the back of my hand to stripe wet tears across my cheek; a poor attempt to remove the tear-stained gloss my face has acquired.  
He coughs with a wheeze and glances at the clock, “Well, I’m pretty sure you don’t know the number..”  
**_20541._**  
I prop my lips open; eager to speak... I don’t know. I- ? That wasn’t my voi-  
I don’t know what’s going on.  
“-I know the number.”  
I somehow stammer out, my hands rolling into weak fists as I pull them down the armrests of the chair. My limbs loosening with adrenaline. I don’t know what just happened. I don’t know. I genuinely don’t know-  
“Okay!”  
He nods as he acknowledges my words, but it’s not clear as to what his expression is displaying, I can’t tell how he’s feeling. The grin is gone- it’s a close-lipped ploy of politeness that sinks no deeper than a child’s play pool.  
“Anytime you need me, just call.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, if you enjoyed this; please leave a quick kudos! I work really hard on these so the support means a lot! Thank you <3


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